


The Left Hand of Death

by Anefi



Series: Mysterious Chunks of Space Debris [1]
Category: River Monsters RPF, Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Prime
Genre: BAMF Soundwave, Gen, Humor, Monster of the Week, Mystery, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anefi/pseuds/Anefi
Summary: Recovered footage from an unaired episode of River Monsters, an investigative documentary show that features dangerous freshwater wildlife from around the world. Episode working title: Metal Menace in Manaus.
Series: Mysterious Chunks of Space Debris [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663726
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	The Left Hand of Death

**Author's Note:**

> General disclaimer: Any resemblance beyond the superficial to actual persons, places, buildings, and products is pretty unlikely but unintended, except for the scenery I filled in from the show or Google Maps. No fish, robots, or camerapersons were harmed in the making of this fic.

The river is wide and dark, with drifting banks of mist and rich, churning silt disguising the turbulent depths with deceptive calm. The camera pans left. Two men in a low dugout are paddling toward a distant dock, fishing gear stowed, outboard motor raised from the murk. A monologue begins from outside the shot, flat in the camera’s native speakers.

“I’m Jeremy Wade, extreme angler and freshwater detective. I’ve spent decades exploring lakes and rivers all over the world, catching legendary fish and solving mysterious attacks. Once again, my travels have brought me deep into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, where a pattern of dangerous encounters has captured my curiosity.” The voice is a smooth tenor with an upcountry British accent, the introduction practiced and measured. “Local legends claim that a deadly monster lurks in these waters that could be unlike any I’ve ever faced. Whether this case leads me to a battle with an entirely new opponent or finds an unexpected threat in of one of the Amazon’s many familiar dangers, it is sure to push my skills of investigation—and angling—to the absolute limit.”

“Cut,” a harsher voice breaks in, without much energy. “That’s fine, Jeremy. Nice and generic. Let’s get a few more of you looking pensive on shore. We got a good window here for a few days of work on the story.”

A quiet snort is picked up from the camera’s operator as the image wobbles. “You mean, fishing sucks when the water is this shitty, so we might as well sleep in real beds while we wait for the runoff to drain downriver.”

“Kevin, quit bitching and get some more filler on Camera Two.”

The operator—Kevin—sighs, and the camera resumes its slow pan.

“It’s just going to be a catfish,” he mutters.

[…]

A dead fish glistens wetly on a table. The wide, grumpy face and flappy little front fins pull back to a long, flat body, like a normal-shaped fish had been steamrolled. Arapaima. The calls of vendors and buyers and the chop of cleavers hitting wood fills the bustling warren of stalls as the camera slowly pans out to cover the rest of the table and the local fish on offer, lingering briefly on a small selection of catfish. A pan to the right reveals the host, towering a head above most of the patrons in a wrinkled cotton shirt. Sharp blue eyes are set deep in a craggy face, under close-cropped white hair. With a nod to the stall keeper, Jeremy Wade steps in and draws the viewer’s attention back to the powerful arapaima, glittering pink and grey.

“Now, I know from harsh personal experience that a defensive arapaima can pack quite a punch,” he says. “At peak ramming speed, they are known to break ribs, and can even cause death. Could this be the culprit capsizing these local boats?”

He holds the concerned face for a long moment, until the director says, “Got it.”

“Thank fuck,” Jeremy says as his shoulders sag. “Let’s get some lunch.”

“Oh, can we get pizza? Please? I will do literally anything. I will kiss one of these fish,” Kevin says.

Jeremy claps his hands together. “Absolutely anything but pizza,” he decides, and turns a sharp about-face toward the mouth of the market.

The camera droops, then shakes as the director knocks him on the shoulder. “Last time we got pizza here, it came with a whole fucking pineapple on it,” Nicky says. “Right in the middle. Skin and leaves and everything. That ain’t fuckin pizza as we know it.”

“I like the kind with M&Ms,” Kevin pouts. The camera swings wildly as he reaches up to put the cap on, catching the streetside edge of the market, where sidewalk vendors outside the metal-roofed pavilion are hawking everything from jewelry to cigarettes and soda.

A pigeon floats to a landing on one of the scattered blue scooters leaning against a wall. There’s a buzz like a bug zapper, and it tumbles off in a flurry of singed feathers. The cap slides over the lens and the picture goes black.

[…]

The timestamp on the next shot is from later that planetary cycle. “Rodrigoooo,” Kevin whispers to himself, as he takes a wide angle of Jeremy, the local fisherman he’s interviewing, and Camera One, which they’re facing, manned by Russell, who is tanned and rumpled and defined chiefly by his beard. The zoom adjusts, then the focus, then the zoom again.

“I look back, and the motor is gone. Just gone,” Rodrigo says. He makes a motion like a bird of prey catching a mouse in its talons. “Ripped. Gone.”

“And it wasn’t a caiman? Or a log? Maybe a pink dolphin?”

“No. No, in the water. Waits at the bottom until it hears a motor, then—” he makes the grasping motion again.

“Aha. Did you see it? Did you see the fish that caused this damage?”

“Yes. I saw it. But—” the man hesitates.

“What did you see?”

“It was no fish,” Rodrigo says. “It was Mão da Morte.”

“The. Ah. Really? That’s. Well, it’s good to have a name for what we’re looking for. Thank you. Thank you for your story.” Jeremy turns back toward Camera One, which pivots with him until they’re looking down the rickety wooden dock. “In all my travels in this region, this is something I’ve never heard of before, something that the locals are referring to with an unusual name: Death’s Hand. The Hand of Death.”

Someone giggles off-screen, utterly failing to avoid audio pickup. “That’s what we call Russell, when—”

“ _Cut!_ ”

“Weird name for a catfish,” Kevin says.

There’s a few more takes of that conversation, with the camera at different distances and angles, with Jeremy trying to tease out more details of the local legend. “It came from the sky,” Rodrigo finally says. “A hand, all metal, burning until it came to the water. I was told when I was a boy. Everybody here knows. It’s not just a story. Like falling stars a week ago, but bigger.” When Jeremy turns toward Camera One with a painfully earnest expression, Camera Two catches it when Rodrigo rolls his eyes.

[...]

Recording starts up again back out on the water. It’s still a muddy brown, but lower, with the roots of trees breaking the surface along the shore. “—Really not looking forward to setting up camp again,” Kevin is saying. “I swear to god, last time I heard something walking around at like two in the morning outside my tent, and it scared me shitless. They don’t have bears here, right? Do you think it was a panther?”

“You wouldn’t hear a jaguar unless it got angry,” mumbles Russell. “It was probably a caiman.”

“A—a crocodile?” Kevin’s voice goes pitchy. “They come up to the camp? Nicky, is that true? Nicky?”

“Yeah, so stay in your tent. That mil of polyester is all that’s protecting you, ’cause I sure ain’t,” the director says.

“Caimans aren’t crocodiles,” Russell says. “They’re crocodilian, but. More like alligators. They’re, you know. Their own thing.”

“I don’t know, Russell! If it looks like a crocodile and swims like a crocodile and wants to _eat your face_ off like a crocodile—”

“C’mon, get your asses in gear, we got shots to shoot!” Nicky calls.

Jeremy is by the shore, pouting at the murky depths, holding a notebook and marker. Camera Two jitters suspiciously toward the waterline, zooming slightly on the nearest drowned log. In the background, another boat of locals paddles by, motor lifted silently out of the water. “Kevin,” Nicky snaps, “Stop looking for crocodiles.”

The camera jerks back toward the host. Jeremy frowns. “We saw four caimans on the way over here,” he says. “It’s the fucking Amazon.”

“Let’s go!” Nicky yells.

With a deep sigh, Jeremy holds up a blank page where both cameras can see it. Across the upper third of the paper, he draws a thick, black line. The marker shrieks. A few inches below it, he draws another line, parallel at first, then flaring away. Camera Two stays focused on the two black lines. “On this side of the city, the river is narrow, here,” – the marker circles in the air over where the two lines are close together – “and then becomes wider.” The marker indicates where the two lines are further apart. “Where rivers are wider, they tend to be more shallow, and slower. All the recorded attacks from the last thirty years take place in this area.” The marker squeals again as Jeremy draws a neat oval indicating the stretch of river just past where it widens. Inside the circle, he painstakingly adds the curve and precise dot of a question mark. The camera holds the shot for a few seconds before the marker drops out of frame.

“Should I draw some little trees on the banks, or can I do some actual fishing?” Jeremy says.

Nicky sighs. There’s a faint sound from off-camera that those who have heard many, many times can easily identify as a hand tiredly impacting a weathered face. “Fine,” Nicky says. “You can fish.”

[…]

For the first time in days of footage, Jeremy is smiling as he glances up at Camera Two. In his nimble fingers, line and weights and hooks dance around each other in complicated knots. “The river level has started to drop again after all that rain, so it’s time for me to get a line in the water,” he says. “I’m starting with some lightweight gear out here toward the banks, to catch some bait fish and get a feel for the local food chain. If I can see what kinds of fish our river monster might be eating, it might help me narrow down the list of suspects.” With a few practiced tugs, he finishes the gear and holds it up for the camera. “Here we go!” He ceremoniously spears some bait, sails an easy cast into the river, and settles back in the boat with beaming camaraderie.

“At least somebody’s happy,” Kevin mutters, just barely loud enough for the camera to pick up. It does not even singe Jeremy’s glowing aura of benevolence. 

The boat sits in practiced quiet, tethered in the shallows, as Jeremy reels in the bait with gentle tugs. Camera Two’s attention wanders from the host, to where the line disappeared into the water, to the low yellow eyes and dark scales of a caiman, lazily swishing its tail as a rudder as it floats along with the current further out in the river, conserving energy, waiting for a fish to venture into striking distance.

At a splash back in the tangle of drowning tree roots, the camera jerks over in time to catch the spreading ripples. “Someone’s hungry!” Jeremy says cheerfully. “That sounded like a big one.”

On the next cast, he lets the bait sink lower to skim along the bottom. He keeps the pad of one finger in contact with the line, feeling for the telltale vibration of a curious fish. “I think I’ve got some interest,” he whispers. Another tug, two, and he silently rises to his knees, careful not to rock the boat. The whine of insects and the lone call of a bird is loud in the still air.

The line snaps tight.

“It’s a fish!” Jeremy cries. He hauls back with the tackle to set the hook, and the lightweight rod bends like a reed. “Fish on!” The line hisses through the water as the fish darts away, but it’s stuck fast. It only takes a few minutes of fighting before Jeremy is calling an assistant for a net and lifting it over the side of the boat. His eyes flash almost accusingly toward Camera Two.

“Red-bellied catfish,” he pronounces. The camera ducks down and zooms in on the sadly flopping fish. “These are very common up and down the Amazon, and of course, we know that they can grow to immense size.” At about the size of Jeremy's shoe, this particular prize is the smallest they have captured on film. “This one is.” He sighs. “Still very young.”

“Well, it’s something,” Nicky says, “Get it back in, we’ll try a couple more casts.” Jeremy gently detaches the hook and lowers the dazed juvenile into the water, where it recovers enough to kick free. Camera Two avoids his face as the host sets more bait and casts again.

The hot jungle air seems to press in around their little boat. The insects have gone quiet.

The next cast goes out. Almost immediately, Jeremy frowns. He puts a little pressure on the line, dips the rod, and then just starts reeling it in.

Very quietly, in the background, Nicky mutters, “Shit.”

When the end of the line clears the water, Jeremy holds it up so the cameras can see. “I thought so,” he says. “Look at this. Sheared right through.” The hook and bait are gone, the plastic line cut cleaner than scissors would. “This could be a sign that these silty waters hide a familiar Amazonian foe: the piranha.”

Kevin groans.

“Cut,” Nicky says. “Your call, Jeremy. Pack it in?”

“I’ll try a few more.” he says.

Again and again, Jeremy dutifully ties hooks, sets bait, casts in—and loses it. Undeterred, he narrates for the cameras as he switches out the tackle and sets reinforced line, taking extra care with the heavier hooks. “Here we go,” he promises, flashing Camera One a smile.

Almost as soon as the hook hits the water, the line goes slack.

“Fuck!”

“Fucking pirhana,” Nicky echoes. “Let’s head back to camp and set up some camera traps, okay? The water should be better tomorrow.”

Jeremy scowls at the neatly clipped end of his reinforced line. “We may have to resort to drastic measures,” he says grimly.

The jungle is a place of strange, constantly changing sights and especially sounds. As the fishing crew packs up, there’s a noise that could have been from some kind of bird or bug or monkey that has Kevin swinging Camera Two around to pan through the underbrush—a sound that could almost be mistaken for giggling.

[...]

The next day, the sky is blue, the waves are small, and the water is—not clear, but clearer. Clouded with nutrients and organic life, instead of thick silt. There are six people crammed together on the boat deck digging through scuffed flight cases and hooking up electronics.

A brown-skinned man in a tank top looks up from a tangle of wires and scowls at Camera Two. “You know, Kevin, you could _help_.”

Nicky’s voice echoes out of a flight case with a pair of squat, sunburned legs in shorts and flip-flops hanging off the side. “Kevin’s not allowed to touch any of this shit!” A hand appears with some sort of connector, which Russell silently takes.

“Sorry, Miguel, I’m not allowed to touch any of this shit,” Kevin says. A hand flickers briefly through the bottom of the view. “Besides, I’m contextualizing! Setting the scene!”

“Getting filler footage,” Nicky supplies.

“Getting filler,” Kevin says. “We’ll switch out the audio for a voiceover or something.” He wanders closer to get a better angle on what Miguel is working on. “Is that the underwater camera?”

“This is the remote viewfinder,” Miguel corrects. “Camera goes in the water on a big stick, this stays on the boat. That rig Russell’s working on is the stick, with control wires and everything.”

“Is that the controller for the camera?”

“It’s—”

“It looks like controls for a PlayStation.”

Miguel’s eyes scrunch closed and he massages his forehead like he’s getting a headache. “Hey, why don’t you go see if Jeremy has any pictures from the trap cameras yet,” he says.

“Oh, good call,” Kevin says. Camera Two swings around toward the stern of the boat to find the host in a wrinkled polo, squinting at a laptop screen through a pair of delicate spectacles. “Hey, Jeremy! Have your investigations revealed what trashed those mini-cams?”

Jeremy levels a dry look at Camera Two over his glasses. “I suppose we might as well get some footage of this.” He digs around in the cargo pocket of his pants for a second, then pulls out a small black box and holds it up for the camera to see. “So,” he says, in his addressing-the-viewership voice, “Since Kevin is afraid of the dark, and nightlights in the jungle only attract bugs—”

“Hey!”

“We set up a few of these motion-activated cameras around the campsite last night in order to catch our creeping culprit.”

“Okay, that was pretty good,” Kevin concedes. “What’s the verdict?

“Well, when we checked this morning, all the lenses were cracked.” Jeremy turns the eye of the black box toward Camera Two, to show the spiderweb of chips and cracks, like someone pounded on it with a hammer and nail.

Kevin gasps. “Sabotage!”

“What? No,” Jeremy says. “We have one frame almost clear from right before the lens broke. Look at this.” Camera Two eagerly circles around to look over his shoulder at the laptop screen. Jeremy hits some keys, and an image pops up. It’s black and white, high contrast and out of focus, but there’s a sweeping curve of something sharp and hooked as it descends on the camera lens from above.

“Huh,” Kevin says. “Is that. A bird beak?”

“I think so,” Jeremy says. “I think some particularly idiotic bird saw light glinting off the lens and tried to eat it. And then, not meeting any success, did it four more times.”

Kevin starts to laugh. From up above, in the overhanging branches of the jungle shore, there’s a sound that could have been an indignant squawk.

After another hour or so, peppered with swearing on-, off-, and at Camera Two, Nicky announces that they’re ready for a trial run. Russell is manning the underwater camera’s control unit, so Miguel and another crewman, are working together to lower the rig into the water from where it’s attached to the bow gunwale with heavy clamps. The long support rod sticks up in the air like a slowly shortening flagpole.

“Easy,” Nicky says from off-camera. The waterproof camera assembly knocks against the side of the boat. “Easy!”

“Do you want to do this?” Miguel snaps.

Camera Two pans right a little to find Jeremy frowning at his team, glasses away, stained baseball cap in place. “So, Jeremy!” Kevin chirps. “What do you think we’ll find? If it’s not a catfish, I mean.”

Jeremy slides a sideways look in his direction, but, evidently deciding he can’t do anything to help manage the new camera, he decides to humor the question. “Biting off motors would be unusual behavior for a catfish,” he says. “But, it doesn’t sound like an arapaima, either.” He ticks off possibilities on his fingers. “It’s not anything like an electric eel. A bull shark wouldn’t get this far upriver. The river dolphins are vicious bastards, but I don’t think they’d be physically capable of knocking off a motor.”

“What do you think about the local story? The metal hand?”

“If it were as simple as, say, underwater wreckage, it would have been resolved a long time ago. I suppose it could be something that looks like metal. Shiny, grey. Or at least, looks grey in the water.”

“It almost sounds like you still have a top suspect.”

“At this point? I really don’t. I’m curious as anything,” Jeremy says. “I just hope it’s not boat traps set by smugglers.”

Camera Two whips around to look at him face-on. “Wait, what?”

“I hate smugglers,” Jeremy says. “Gun runners, drug runners. Poachers. They kill more people than all the animals in this river combined.”

“Um,” Kevin says, “Wait, can we talk about—”

A cheer goes up from the bow: the camera is in the water, and Russell’s screen is showing murky light and gently wafting algae.

“Kevin!” Nicky yells. “Go get footage of Russell getting this footage!”

“Run along,” Jeremy says. “Watch out for caimans.”

“We need to get away from these plants,” Russell is saying. “Let’s get out to deeper water.”

“I’ll start up the engine,” Jeremy says cheerfully.

“Wait,” Kevin says at a rising pitch. “Is that a good idea?”

“You need to set the right bait for the right catch!” Jeremy yells over the sound of the motor starting up.

Kevin staggers forward, toward the bow—or away from him.

“Russell,” Kevin squeaks, “Do you see anything?” 

“Nothing yet,” Russell says, eyes glued to the screen. “Not even pirhana, actually, which—”

“What was that?” Nicky said, hovering over Russell’s left shoulder.

“Leaf,” Russell said.

“No, the shiny thing.”

“I didn’t see anything shiny.”

“Lower it down a little more, Miguel. And can we turn left? Left? The other— _left_.”

Something grey whips past the screen. “Oh, fuck,” Kevin moans. “Fuck, fuck. Shit. Fuck.” On some premonition, Camera Two turns toward the rig just in time to see it twist out of Miguel’s hands.

“Shit, this thing—did we hit a rock?” Miguel makes a grab for it as the support pole waves crazily in the air, misses, and narrowly avoids getting hit as it swings around again.

“Is that a fucking _octopus?_ ” Nicky yells.

“I can’t—I lost control,” Russel says, “I lost the feed.”

“It’s the Hand,” Kevin cries. “We’re gonna die!”

With a shriek and pop of metal and fiberglass, the entire support for the underwater camera is ripped from the boat and dragged into the water, cables hissing and sparking. Kevin starts tipping as the boat lurches, and Miguel makes a dive to catch and tackle him to the deck.

“Jeremy! Get away from the motor!” he yells.

“Fuck that, get us out of here!”

Camera Two skitters sideways across the deck when the boat lurches again. It’s only by chance it knocks against something else and spins around to point toward Jeremy at the stern. He falls back on his hands and kicks away from the back of the boat, motions sharp with panic.

With a great heave of water, three massive grey fingers, each taller than a human and twice as wide, wrap around the two outboard motors at the stern. They’re pitted with age and streaked with algae, but no less strong. The boat jolts, and shudders, and buckles where the matching thumb must be applying leverage to tear the motors from their bearings. The engines sputter and die, wailing and cracking as they’re crushed and start leaking oil. Screaming metal almost drowns out the screams of the crew, but Jeremy has crab-walked close enough to Camera Two that it picks up his very quiet, forceful swearing.

Behind the hand, an immense shape is rising from the churning river. Water sluices off it in thundering sheets as it looms higher and higher. The plating is dark, dark blue, like the space between stars, a blue never seen in the living water of the Amazon. A halo of snaking coils rises behind it, wicked prehensile cables tipped with sharp clamps; one is wrapped around the underwater camera, dragging it through the air, trailing wires. The figure towers over the boat, looking down at them with a visor glowing an implacable red. Two arms reach out, long and oddly delicate, relative to the sturdy grey monster savaging the motors, but even less humanoid. It gently pries the aggressive wayward appendage off the back of the boat and enfolds it safely in its arms.

There’s some kind of tiny metal biped dangling from the plating around its elbow joint—or it just looks tiny, in comparison. It’s the same color as the city scooters. “Hey, meatbags!” it yells. “Your slagging basic tech ain’t got nothin on the automatic subroutines of Lord Megatron’s little finger!”

From the edge of the jungle, a winged red blur launches into the air and glides toward the cobalt titan, fine, shifting plates glittering in the sunlight. It settles on its shoulder and hisses down at the humans below. “You’re all just fragged lucky this wasn’t the hand with the fusion cannon.”

The last shot recorded by Camera Two is of gleaming grey cables snaking through the air like fly fishing line, one wrapping around the minicon’s waist and lifting him into the air, the other darting toward the lens. The camera flies up, up, into the blue with the thunderous roar of igniting thrusters, then swings around to watch a wrecked boat full of scrambling humans get smaller and smaller in the distance, spinning across the water as their monsters leave them behind.

_/**File archived: Decepticon Mission Log 304985623948:2345-0984:2439843:23983.1654, Supplement 30982**/_

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Okay, well, if I can’t work on Roots, maybe a quick one-shot? There’s so many great shows and really active fandoms right now.  
> Brain: ...  
> Me: The Witcher! The Untamed! The Expanse! Or what about Black Sails? Maybe I could finish that one—  
> Brain: Nah.  
> Me: …  
> Brain: Remember how for months you were too sad to watch anything but cartoons and that fishing show?  
> Me: Barely.  
> Brain: :)  
> Me: … oh no.
> 
> ~
> 
> If you're reading this, thanks for clicking on this weird little story and giving it a chance! I'm [on tumblr as anefi](https://anefi.tumblr.com/) for questions or prompts or to just say hello.


End file.
